Võistlused – Lehekülg 110 – Nourish, Train & Flourish

The IV (and last) Virtual Run this spring took place from the 18th–20th April. I really wanted to take part in it since it was the last one but I didn’t know when would be the best time since I’m so terribly busy with schoolwork right now. It was also Easter weekend which meant that I had to balance family time, workouts and studying for my exams… Oh well, I thought it would be a good idea to get the running done on Friday.

Couldn't really complain about my race number, could I? :) — Couldn’t really complain about my race number, could I? 🙂

Bad idea.

By now I should have known that I absolutely need one rest day before racing. What did I do? 4 hard workouts with no rest days before the race. On Friday morning I had a pretty good idea that the goal to finish under an hour (for 10,4 km – read why 400 m more than 10K here – it means 5:45 min per km) or with a pace of 6 min per km was not going to happen. But I still decided to go out there and try my best.

Before racing I had a very light breakfast: banana smoothie. I was out the door just before 10 AM. I made a quick 1 kilometer warm-up, reset my RunKeeper and then it was race time.

On the first kilometer I was ahead of my target pace (5:45) but it sure was hard. I tried to stay positive but my legs told me that I’m not going to keep that pace this time. The weather was warm and sunny but the wind was STRONG. At first, the wind wasn’t at least against me.

splits — You can see that it started to get really hard on the 8th km.

I was running a pretty boring lap this time: to Kohtla-Järve and back, so the same road twice. I hate running back and worth, I like an actual lap that’s not repetitive better. I did see some cyclists, a runner and people walking. They all stared at my number like I was crazy. Who is this girl, running with a number 1 on her shirt? Why is she doing this?

18.04

I have to be honest: I also thought to myself why am I doing this. My legs were heavier than usual. They have been worse but I had to push myself to keep going. I was behind my pace from the second kilometer and actually never managed to speed up. I should have made Friday a resting day and raced on Saturday with fresh, well rested legs. But there was nothing I could change at that point other than finish what I started.

The really tough times started about 4 km before finish. I had turned around and started running back and the wind just not on my side anymore. It was blowing in my face and I almost felt like I was moving backwards rather than forwards. Fortunately for me, my iPhone started to play all the right songs and lyrics like “not giving in” and “I’m the champion” etc made me push myself. It was sunny and warm after all. Enjoy the weather and ignore the wind.

160 meters before finish I managed to somehow click “Finish” on RunKeeper. Oh, man, what more is going wrong? I moved my fingers faster than ever and quickly started a new workout session to run another 160 m. It was a race and I couldn’t send incomplete data back to marathon100.com.

After finishing I made a 600 meter cooldown back home. All in total: 12K.

I completed the race with a time of 1 hour 4 minutes and 14 seconds. Average pace: 6:10 min per km. I didn’t accomplish my goals: not under an hour and not 6 min per km. But I still improved my last Virtual Run pace of 6:17 min per km so I still shouldn’t be disappointed.

Results:

My official time: 1:04:14
Average pace: 6:10 min per km
My position: 5th (out of 5 that finished) –> yup, I was last in this race but with only 5 participants: I’m not that disappointed
My position among women: 4 (out of 4)

And really, I’m not disappointed. Not the best race ever but not bad either. It’s actually pretty funny how 2 weeks ago, I was thrilled about a pace of 6:17 per km but now I’m pretty neutral about running 6:10 in tough conditions. I need to not be so hard on myself! I’ll have to chance to accomplish my 10K goals in my next race: SEB Tartu Jooksumaraton on the 11th of May.

In Workout Week posts I will tell you everything about my last week’s workouts.

Monday‘s Jooks Jõud Venitus was cancelled and I went running in the morning. I didn’t push myself too hard and took it slower. I also climbed Toome Hill again. I love running in the city, it’s so much more interesting and time passes A LOT faster than when running in one straight line. Time: 1 hour, distance: 8,77K, average pace: 6:51 min per km. A good start to the week!

Tuesday: BodyPump. Finally I felt good in Tuesday’s Pump. 🙂 Before pumping I did a quick 20 minute warm-up run and honestly: it was the best decision in a long time! I was already sweaty and really working it out in warm-up track 😀 I ran out of my second bottle-full of water after triceps track… By the end of the class I was so thirsty I could have died. It was a good workout! I think I’m going to start doing a short run before every BP now.

Wednesday was supposed to intervals day but Maris told us that it was going to be a Monday’s routine: run+strength. I was determined to get some intervals done, so I did. I made a 10 minute warm-up run, then 20 minutes of intervalling, then 30 minutes of steady running. After that we had around 45 minute for strength training. It was a nice long workout 🙂

Thursday’s BodyPump was awesome. I did the whole chest track with 7+7 kg bar and also added a little weight for some parts in triceps and biceps. I just can’t get enough of this workout 🙂

Friday I had the IV Virtual Run this year. All in total I ran 12K that day. A longer post about my race coming next week.

Saturday was such a great day. I love Saturdays at home! I had a great breakfast and then went out to make the first real cycling trip this year. All in total I cycled 33,2 kilometres in almost 2 hours (with small breaks to check the map or take photos). I was out in a short-sleeved cycling shirt and shorts and I wasn’t actually cold at all. It was so sunny and warm and I got tanlines on my legs. I could have cycled even more but time is a scarce resource if you’re a student trying to graduate. Later that afternoon I did some more tanning on my porch along with my study materials… A good productive day 🙂

Sunday was actually supposed to be a cycling or swimming day but the weather was so great that I just wanted to run. I went running thinking it was going to be an easier recovery run. But now that I can run faster, I don’t want to go slow anymore. 😀 Distance: 7K, average pace: 6:06 min per km (= fast for me).

In total:

4 hours 30 minutes of running

2 hours 50 minutes of muscle workouts

1 hour 50 minutes of walking

2 hours of cycling

So much yellow in my workout table which means a lot of running. I was out on a proper run 4 times this week + did two short warm-up runs. All in total a little over 41 kilometres which a serious weekly distance for me. I actually really like my workout routine right now: concentrating on running and adding in supportive activities like strength and various cross training.

I sometimes do worry about my triathlon in July since I haven’t really started with serious cycling yet. I have done quite a bit of swimming in the winter but now I’m also lacking in that department. But at the same time, my half-marathon comes before the triathlon, so maybe now is not the time to worry about it (too much)? I don’t know. Let’s get the 21,1K done first and then start to seriously engage in tri prepping.

Sometimes you just can’t do it all. Or can you?

Rubriik: Võistlused

Marathon100 IV Virtual Run 10K

Results:

Workout Week 14.–20.04.2014

In total: